Meredith tells us about the very important piece of advice that doctors try to keep in mind: “If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.” It’s about looking for the obvious answers, ruling out the most likely ones first because that’s usually what it is. However, we can’t always help that our minds race with the black and white flurry of zebras dashing by. Meredith is haunted by her phone call to Derek, the one where a strange women picked up the phone and said nothing. She’s thinking about a whole herd of zebras right now.
April is back full time and she’s like a bunny on caffeine. She’s happy and excited to be back in the ER, so much so that she pulls Jackson into an empty supply room where they start making out. Jackson tries to gauge if his wife is alright, but it just pisses April off. For once, she wanted to not think about the tragedy that they recently experienced. Also attempting to get down are Owen and Amelia, whose make out session is interrupted by their pagers.
Derek is not answering his phone, and Meredith is trying to keep the gnawing feeling that Derek is cheating on her at bay. Meanwhile, Callie (and her leather jacket) struts into the hospital with her lady date in tow. She and the perky blonde (I see a pattern) had to end their date before it really started, but her date isn’t leaving without some sweet Callie kisses. Callie obliges, and all is fine until Arizona spots them through a window. Callie looks up to see her ex-wife staring at her, and awkwardness ensues. While Callie has every right in the world to move on, making out with your date in the hospital where you ex works is less than thoughtful.
But such is life at Grey Sloan Memorial. This is why whenever I break up with someone, I try to Eternal Sunshine that shit right out. It has yet to work. Sigh.
Meredith heads to the on-call room where she wakes a sleeping Alex (and a bonus Maggie!) to tell them about her weird phone call to Derek. Maggie asks “what kind of woman” it was and in Meredith’s head she was “happy and tall, with a lot of great hair.” Maggie and Alex assure her that it’s probably nothing, and their support session is interrupted by a trauma page.
Callie and Arizona take the elevator together where they both try to avoid talking about what just happened. Arizona compliments Callie on her dress, which is new. She’s buying new dresses: This is officially a sign of moving on, and Arizona knows it. When the doors open, Callie springs into action on a trauma that’s come in. She changes from her little back dress into her scrubs right in front of everyone. Arizona, we saw you sneak a peek, and we don’t judge.
Jo and Stephanie give the attendings the low down on the trauma, and Jo balks when Owen tries to assign her to Arizona’s patient instead of Callie’s. Well, Callie’s patient is also Meredith’s and no one is more obsessed with the streak than Jo is. Callie rushes to attend to the patient, Tom, who was hit by a car that crashed into his home. His pregnant wife was also injured. Tom’s in seriously bad shape, and Arizona’s patient is missing. The wife, Claire, is chatting with her mom on the phone in the hallway and seems to be doing fine already despite a head injury, cuts and bruises. Tom wakes up briefly, and screams for his wife. They rush him through the ER and he runs into Claire, and they share a moment of comfort before Tom heads to the OR.
Also in the ER is the driver of the car. He’s an older guy, who is very combative, screaming about shoes. The police ask Richard to run a drug and alcohol panel, as they suspect he is under the influence. The man hauls off and punches Maggie in the face when she attempts to help him. Richard has the man restrained, and soon after, his wife arrives. Martin, her husband, isn’t drunk. He has Alzheimer’s. This revelation hits Richard especially hard. The wife usually hides the car keys, but when she was in the shower, her husband found them.
As the docs prep for Tom’s surgery and get the news about Martin, Maggie comes in with an ice pack on her face. Richard asks how her scan went, and she assures him that she’s A-ok. However, when Richard leaves and Maggie stands up, she gets dizzy and wobbles a bit.
As they work on Tom, Callie launches into her guilty feelings about Arizona catching her kissing her date. Meredith points out that Arizona was doing the same thing, except when they were married, so she doesn’t need to own those guilty pangs. Richard and Maggie work on Martin in another OR and Maggie goes off about Martin’s wife being an irresponsible caregiver. Ben keeps trying to subtly get her to drop it, but Maggie doesn’t just stick her foot in her mouth halfway. She commits. Richard tells her about Adele and she feels terrible.
Ameila, Jo and Arizona work with Claire, who is laughing and chatting about her husband’s punk band. Arizona jumps in, claiming she has a punk past, and I desperately want to believe her. Claire is fine one moment, then having a massive seizure the next.
April works with a young man who got his tongue stuck in a metal water bottle, and her bedside manner today stinks. Jackson pulls her aside, which April takes to mean that it’s go-time. She whips off her shirt (hello!) but Jackson just wants to talk. April wants him to stop treating her like she could break at any moment.
Amelia, Arizona, Bailey and Jo fight to save Claire but it all happens so fast. It was a massive brain bleed that couldn’t be fixed, and Claire dies in the exam room. They continue CPR to keep blood flowing, so they can try and deliver the baby. The whole thing hits Jo really hard.
Richard finds Meredith to ask her if Maggie knows about their mother’s Alzheimer’s. He thinks she deserves to know, but Meredith isn’t sure that it’s going to change anything. They both get called into Martin’s room, where he is suddenly completely lucid. He recites a poem that was part of his proposal to her, and the docs are baffled as to this strange recovery.
He recites the poem again (which is The Indian Serenade by Shelley), but this time it is as the background for what’s happening with Claire’s lifeless body in an exam room nearby. They deliver the baby, and Alex takes over when he isn’t crying. After a tense moment, a tiny cry fills the room and there is a brief moment of relief within this tragedy. Jo breaks down and Bailey sends her on her way.
Amelia moves on to examine Martin and he and his wife talk about all the things he’s missed in the last five years. He recognizes how difficult this must have been for his devoted spouse. Amelia wants to run an MRI because she suspects that there might be something other than Alzheimer’s affecting him. He asks about the car accident and Richard waves it off, knowing that the fact that he killed someone would be too devastating right then and there.
Arizona and Callie both go to check on Tom and Claire’s baby at the same time, and Alex gets the hell out of there fast. Callie checks in to see how Arizona is after losing Claire, which is nice and I love seeing them expressing that sort of concern for each other again. Arizona attempts to talk to Callie about her date earlier, but Callie cuts her off, and tells her that she’s going to continue to see other people and it’s not really any of her business. Rather than start an argument, Arizona keeps it zipped.
Steph and Owen look in on Tom, who is still touch and go. Steph asks if technically he is Callie’s patient, Owen’s or Meredith’s. Meredith comes by and tells her to knock it off. She reminds Steph that there is a real person lying there, and his life has been changed forever, so that’s the only thing that is important. When Steph leaves, Owen asks how many patients Meredith has had in her “streak.” Meredith gives him a sly smile and tells him 89.
The MRI results are in for Martin and it’s not Alzheimer’s after all. It’s normal pressure hydrocephalus, which can be treated with a shunt. However, without that, Martin will go back to suffering the symptoms he’s had for the last five years. They let Martin and his wife know about the procedure, but, first, the police want a word with him.
Jo and Alex talk about Jo’s earlier breakdown. She watches over the little baby (who Alex calls Dan) and can’t believe the amount of tragedy the little guy has faced in his two hours of life. Jo storms off when Alex tells her it’s just part of the job. Bailey kindly reminds him that while he might be desensitized to all the pain and death he sees after all this time, it’s still new to Jo. That’s why the residents are obsessed with the streak, she tells him. “Death is scary.” Truth, Bailey. Truth.
Callie finds a dark empty hallway to catch a few Zs, but Meredith is already there, and thoroughly freaks her out. Meredith asks Callie if she knew or had a feeling Arizona and George were cheating beforehand? Time for some real talk.
When Martin finds out the gravity of the accident and that he killed a young mother, he is beside himself. He decides against the surgery, knowing that he can’t live with the reality of what happened. He’d rather forget it all. His wife is devastated, and in the whole scheme of things, it feels awfully selfish of him. He tells her to put him in a home, but we all know that she won’t. Now she will have to go back to being his full time caregiver, losing her best friend and partner again, right when they could have had a second chance. What do you think about the whole thing? Ben can’t believe his choice either, but Richard reminds him that he is their patient and it’s his decision to make.
April and Jackson head home for the evening, and April finally gets through to Jackson. She’s still in pain, but she wants to feel like April again. “I am your wife! I’m right here,” she shouts at him, and they take it to the car and finally have sex.
Alex and Maggie join Callie and Meredith, and they suggest the numerous reasons that a woman could have answered Derek’s phone. Maggie has a ton of great reasons, and some not so great (an accident? That’s not helping). Well at least she tries. She reminds her sister not to search for zebras. Meredith is afraid that Derek’s repeating the same thing he did when he left Addison and had an affair with her. Alex pipes up and says that Derek still want to “do” her, which means they are all good. Callie thinks that MerDer are proof that love is real. They are her OTP apparently.
They all get a page that Tom is crashing, and Meredith assumes that her streak is over. However, they get him back, and the streak continues.
Arizona joins Callie at the elevators and can’t keep silent anymore. She knows Callie’s date, Heather, and they used to go out. Oh man, they make it seem like the Seattle queer lady dating pool is about as big as a puddle in a pothole. Callie tells Arizona that that sort of thing might happen, and she needs to deal. Finally Arizona says two words that resonate with Callie: “Steak Knives.” Not only did Arizona date Heather, but she was super intense and more than a touch cray. Callie remembers the stories and realizes that Arizona helped her dodge a bullet, big time. Arizona wasn’t sure if it was her place to tell Callie, but frankly, it’s a public service announcement. Callie is grateful, and it’s a funny, sweet little moment between these two. Maybe we will get through this after all. Maybe.
As Bailey and Ben get ready to go home for the evening, Bailey stops by to have a word with Jo. Jo apologizes profusely for crying about their patient, but Bailey tells her it is exactly that type of empathy and kindness that will make her an amazing doctor. Bailey, bestill my heart. Oh yeah, and Amelia and Owen make out some more.
Richard and Maggie watch over Martin and his wife as he begins to lose his memory once again. Richard decides to tell Maggie about Ellis. When Maggie stumbles into him, she admits that she didn’t have a CT scan of her head alike she said. He calls her Margaret Pierce, and it’s such a dadtastic moment. She tells him that she had a full genetic make up as a kid, and she does have a predisposition for Alzheimer’s. She thought maybe if was from his side of the family, and she’s so grateful that it isn’t that she hugs him. I think it might be the first time, and it gives me the big time warm fuzzies.
At the MerDer mansion, Meredith hears someone struggling with the door. She opens it and Derek is standing there. He left DC in a hurry and forgot his keys. “You called me and a woman answered my phone,” he says to her, his face looking tired and sad. They stare at each other, and Meredith knows something isn’t right.
Next week on Grey’s Anatomy, we find out exactly what Derek has been up to. Spoiler: It doesn’t look good.
Here are our favorite #GreysGays tweets from last night’s episode.
All of lesbian Twitter called that death. You can’t be bright and shiny on @GreysABC. #GreysAnatomy #GreysGays #TGIT
– Nicole Duguay (@nicoleduguay) March 20, 2015
I’d really like to see Arizona with this heavy eyeliner. #GreysAnatomy #GreysGays
– Kitty (@SmartLittleLiar) March 20, 2015
Punk Arizona makes me think of Punk Quinn. #greysgays #Gaysharks
– Annie (@isnahah) March 20, 2015
Why am I sympathizing more with Arizona than Callie? WHATISHAPPENINGTOME?! #CalzonaStrong #GreysGays
– dara (@dadaliket0stada) March 20, 2015
Since everyone is “moving” on, can we bring Dr Sawyer back for Arizona? #sorrynotsorry #GreysGays #GreysAnatomy
– Roxy (@Super_Rocio) March 20, 2015
MerDer sounds like a disease when you say it out loud. #GreysAnatomy #GreysGays
– TheOtherNic (@anh62950) March 20, 2015
I’m the one who paged Amelia. I needed to stop that! #GreysGays #GreysAnatomy #JustSayNoToOwenWithAmelia
– Beth Eastwood (@BethEastwood) March 20, 2015
The fact that Arizona had a punk phase makes her infinitely hotter. Can we get a flashback please…I’m asking for a friend #GreysGays
– Verena Jane (@jane_verena) March 20, 2015
The fact that Arizona had a punk phase makes her infinitely hotter. Can we get a flashback please…I’m asking for a friend #GreysGays
– Verena Jane (@jane_verena) March 20, 2015
Hey Callie instead of screaming for “team MerDer” why not scream for team Calzona. #GreysGays
– Lady Liberty (@CindyLMarshall) March 20, 2015
